LETTERS; A Better Way to Elect Our Leaders?

Published: March 27, 2010

To the Editor:

Re ''A Tea Party Without Nuts,'' by Thomas L. Friedman (column, March 24):

It's wonderful to see Mr. Friedman recommend ''alternative voting,'' which in this country is more commonly known as ''instant runoff voting'' or ''ranked-choice'' voting. Instant runoff voting is fairer than the ''vote for one'' election method, and as Mr. Friedman points out, ranked-choice ballots let voters more freely and fully express their preferences.

Instant runoff voting has already been adopted by several California cities. This year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences helped publicize instant runoff voting by using it to award the best picture Oscar. The League of Women Voters of Los Angeles, of which I am president, is advocating instant runoff voting for government elections.

The league's intent is not to push politics in any particular direction. Instant runoff voting simply gives people a clearer voice.

In addition to instant runoff voting and nonpartisan redistricting, to give us more choice in our elections, we need a uniform, reasonable ballot access law to allow alternative candidacies (independents and third parties) to have a chance to present ideas to the American public by being on the ballot.

We also need nonpartisan administration of our elections to ensure that partisan election officials are not making discriminatory determinations of who gets on the ballot, who gets to vote, how voter rolls are purged and how votes are counted.

Theresa Amato
Oak Park, Ill., March 24, 2010

The writer, a public interest lawyer, is the author of ''Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny'' and was national campaign manager for Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004.

To the Editor:

Phil Keisling may be right that to avoid extremism we should scrap party primaries (''To Reduce Partisanship, Get Rid of Partisans,'' Op-Ed, March 22), but the alternative system he recommends is even worse in that respect.

Mr. Keisling proposes that states should run open primaries in which the top two vote-getters go on to face each other in the general election. This is essentially the same method that France uses to elect presidents, only instead of a general election, the French hold a runoff between the two leading candidates from the first round.

In 2002, this system shocked the world by sending Jean-Marie Le Pen, an extreme right-wing candidate, to the runoff -- a travesty because the left-center candidate, Lionel Jospin, would have easily defeated Mr. Le Pen in head-to-head competition, but was eliminated in the first round (he finished third to Mr. Le Pen and the right-center incumbent, Jacques Chirac).

Such an outcome was possible because the vote on the left was badly split among several popular candidates. Mr. Keisling's proposal would permit similar travesties to occur in the United States.

A better approach would be to eliminate primaries altogether and open the general election to all candidates. But rather than confining citizens to vote for a single candidate, they would be given the opportunity to rank candidates in order of their preference. The winner would be the candidate who, according to the rankings, would beat all others in head-to-head contests.

Such a system would avoid the possibility of an extremist defeating a moderate when a large majority of voters prefer the moderate.

Eric S. Maskin
Princeton, N.J., March 22, 2010

The writer, a Nobel laureate in economics, is a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study.

To the Editor:

Phil Keisling, a former Oregon secretary of state, sponsored a ''top-two'' primary measure that was rejected by almost a 2-to-1 margin by Oregon voters in 2008. It would have allowed parties to advance their candidates to the general election by using ''ringers'' to split the primary votes of the other parties.

Anyone could register with any party and appear on the primary ballot with that party's label. For example, Republicans could recruit people to register and file as Democratic candidates and thereby split up the Democratic vote and stop any of them from finishing in the top two. Democrats could follow the same strategy.

Since 1979, in Louisiana, the only state where this system has operated for more than one election cycle, there have been 9, 9, 8, 12, 16, 11, 17 and 12 candidates on the primary ballot for governor alone. Fragmenting the vote has allowed extremist candidates (remember the white supremacist David Duke) to win the primary -- the opposite of what Mr. Keisling desires.

Linda Williams
Portland, Ore., March 24, 2010

The writer is chairwoman of the Independent Party of Oregon.

To the Editor:

Phil Keisling is right that our primary system is broken, with plunging and unrepresentative turnout, but his prescription for a general election between the top two primary candidates would too often replicate the worst of modern politics. After eliminating most candidates in low-turnout primaries, we'd typically be left with two candidates representing only the major parties.

It would be better to allow all candidates on the November ballot and use instant runoff voting. Voters would have one vote but indicate backup choices. If their first choice runs weakly and is eliminated, their ballots are awarded to their next choice, requiring winners to reach out to backers of other candidates.

''Hurt Locker'' won the best picture Oscar with this system, and voters handle it well in major elections in Minneapolis and San Francisco and in nations like Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Instant runoff voting can be particularly valuable in those state legislative districts where voters elect several representatives rather than just one. It could result in fairer representation of the left, center and right, providing more balance to policymaking.